Digital Transformation | Hybrid Cloud | IoT

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Global Mobile Internet Data Traffic will Incease 13-Fold

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 13-fold over the next four years, reaching 11.2 exabytes per month (for an annual run rate of 134 exabytes) by 2017.

The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion) by 2017.

The forecast’s annual run rate of 134 exabytes of mobile data traffic is equivalent to:

134 times all the Internet Protocol traffic (fixed and mobile) generated in the year 2000, or

30 trillion images (e.g., via MMS or Instagram) — 10 images daily from each person on earth for one year, or

3 trillion video clips (e.g., YouTube) — one video clip daily from each person on earth over one year.

“By 2017, global mobile data traffic will continue its truly remarkable growth, increasing 13-fold over the next five years, to reach an amount more than 46 times the total amount of mobile IP traffic just a few years ago in 2010. With such dramatic adoption, we are rapidly approaching the time when nearly every network experience will be a mobile one and, more often than not, a visual one as well. This trend is a result of the seemingly insatiable demand by consumers and businesses alike to achieve the benefits gained when connecting people, data, and things in an Internet of Everything,” said Doug Webster, Vice President of Service Provider Networking Marketing, Cisco.

The projected 2012 to 2017 global mobile data traffic increase represents a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent. The incremental amount of traffic being added to the mobile Internet just between 2016 and 2017 is 3.7 exabytes per month, which is more than four times the estimated size of the entire mobile Internet in 2012 (885 petabytes per month).

During the 2012 to 2017 forecast period, Cisco anticipates that global mobile data traffic will outpace global fixed data traffic by a factor of three. The following major trends are driving global mobile data traffic growth:

More mobile users: By 2017, there will be 5.2 billion mobile users (up from 4.3 billion in 2012).

More mobile connections: By 2017, there will be more than 10 billion mobile devices/connections, including more than 1.7 billion M2M connections (up from 7 billion total mobile devices and M2M connections in 2012).

In terms of mobile data traffic growth rates over the forecast period, the Middle East and Africa region is projected to have the highest regional growth rate. Below is how each of the regions ranks in terms of growth rate by 2017:

The Middle East and Africa: 77 percent CAGR (17.3-fold growth)

Asia-Pacific: 76 percent CAGR (16.9-fold growth)

Latin America: 67 percent CAGR (13.2-fold growth)

Central and Eastern Europe: 66 percent CAGR (12.8-fold growth)

North America: 56 percent CAGR (9.4-fold growth)

Western Europe: 50 percent CAGR (7.6-fold growth)

In terms of mobile data traffic generation, the Asia-Pacific region is projected to generate the most mobile data traffic. Here’s how each of the regions rank in terms of anticipated mobile data traffic generation by 2017: